NAM Traffic Simulators

[GMT 389]

Originally posted by: david1314

Originally posted by: Neddiggis

Originally posted by: david1314It was described as an absolute maximum.  It isn't.

quote>

 

Where, can you quote Jason saying the please cos I haven't found that.  He has said that it's not absolute... and that it can be exceeded. quote>

the term 'maximum' is absolute unless qualified.  A 'mathematical maximum' is a simply mathematical calculation and is absolute on the above....math is logical, exceeding a maximum is not logical, ergo a mathematical maximum is absolute.

We can argue semantics all we want, but a maximum that can be exceeded is not a maximum...per se

And finally, I never said jplumbley said it was absolute (though it does appear that was his intention), but every reference I've seen to it on the forums by others have assumed its absolute.quote>

semantics is a good point here.

It's a matter of programming terms, and maximum is a beloved term in any programming language, but, as we know, not exactly absolute for you can change it for you personal likes....

[david1314 44]

^ Nothing was changed.... That is SC4's standard simulator.

It's not like I modified the maximum...it's like there is no maximum.

[jplumbley 5]

Sim Walking Speed in the original MAXIS Simulator = 3.5 tiles per hop

Maximum Commute Time in the original MAXIS Simulator = 6

Maximum Commute Time (MT preferred) in the original MAXIS Simulator = 4

*Maximum Commute Time is the name of the property that MAXIS named.

**MT = Mass Transit, this property may only be used when calculating for station to station trips.

Trip = there and back so divide the Maximum Commute time by 2.

"Hop Count" Cost of a Tile when walking = 1/3.5 = 0.28

Maximum Commute Time = 6/2 = 3

Maximum Commute Time (MT Preferred) = 4/2 = 2

Maximum Commute = 3/0.28  or for MT 2/0.28

     = 10.5 (round up to 11)

     or = 7 (for MT)

_________________________________________________________________

For the purposes of allowing growth in your city  MAXIS may have written some code into the Simulator to drastically ramp down the number of sims commuting at this point instead of fully cut it off right away.  In the following picture you will see that sims do not abandon until they are more than 11 tiles away.  In the middle road 2 houses are 12 tiles away and will walk that far, but everything beyond 12 tiles is abandonded.  Everything upto 20 tiles away grew and abandonded and then nothing would grow beyond that 20 tile limit.

There are more jobs than sims in the new region with absolutely no plugins.  So abandonment did not come from insufficient jobs.

_________________________________________________________________

There are specific cases where Sims will walk more than 11 tiles.

1.   From a Station to work IF:

          - The Sim must be MT Preferred (With MT Preferred the Cars are penalized with a starting "hop count" of 1.95 towards the Maximum Commute.)

          - The total cost of the trip is longer than the Max Commute allowed but still faster than the Car trip with the penalization.

     For example:  A Sim taking the bus may at the last stop walk more than 7 tiles if he has to walk say upto 15 tiles (15 tiles would equal 15*0.28 = 4.2 hop counts)...  Now if the Car Commute is on that is 78 tiles on road the entire way that would make a commute time of approximately 2.5, which is in range for a commute and not allowing for the home to abandon.  But, because the Sim *prefers* MT you are required to add 1.95 to the 2.5 commute which now equals 4.45 and is higher than the Sims taking the bus and walking.

Therefore the Sim by car would normally be in range but because the game has designated the Sim a MT Preferred it makes the out of range walk the shorter distance.  So, instead of Abandoning the Sim will walk the extra distance and your Commute Time Graph will pay the price in the end.

*Remember, Transit-Enabled Lots will reset the commute time to 0.

** This is the same for ANY mass transit station.

*** City Boarders act like a TE Lot, because there is no physical regional tracking system for Transit Simulator purposes.  This would just be folley because of the amount of strain it could add to your computer.  In 2003, computers were barely able to handle SC4 even at the top end.  We are now just realizing the potential this Simulator can handle with functions we have activated that were previously dormant or unreliable in the original Simulator.

2.  Simulators are only as good as the computer they are run on.  Each path can have hundreds of variations to test, especially if you are a griddy player.  IF you have a very large population city mul

[david1314 44]

Ok, thats kinda the same page I'm on...and what I had pretty much assumed.

It seems that when Maxis coded the game (and correct me if you know this to be wrong) what they have termed a 'Maximum Commute Time', is in fact a 9X% interval into which commuters will fall within a normal curve. So it is in no way an actual maximum, but rather a statistical average near an apparent maximum.

If the engine is statistically based rather than mathematically based, it would stand to reason that local commute times would rate desireability based upon regional commute averages (I'm not speaking in SC4 terms here, but in real world terms). For example, Hoboken, NJ, part of the NY metro has a massive average commute (highest in nation), but it is still prime real-estate being across the Hudson from NYC. Whereas the same commute time for some tiny city would (quite legitimately) result in abandonment from the city.

And here is where the theoretical issue comes in: One of the proximate causes for creation of a work-around for the SC4 path engine is the abandonment of adverse commute locations. The solution to this problem is (assuming relative figures) equalization of commute times across a city. This can be achieved through one of two methods, speeding up the slow guys, or slowing down the fast guys.

By reducing the average commute of commuters to the baseline that maxis has applied (without increased statistical variation based on increased commute), you have effectively equaled out the commute times to within some minimum threshold (it appears)...the same that would apply to a brand new city or one without transit engine experience.

What I have done flies in the face of what most tend to assume of SC4: The way to reduce abandonment is to increased commute times. By doing this sufficiently, we can push the distribution curve of traffic distances to longer times and thus get longer commutes with the same engine. If we use real cities as a case study, we find the most livable cities on earth, Boston, New York, London, Paris, Denver, LA...(the list goes on)...also tend to have the longest commutes.

I do understand the whole range of additional issue this mod addresses, but I think all of the above is 1) overlooked regularly (if not by you than by others); 2) true; and 3) relevant to this discussion...

Jplumbley... I hope this has been somewhat enlightening for you. I have put more time and effort into this than you seem to think I have.

^actually, I do understand the amount of time and effort into this (and know I do not have the motivation to do so...I can't develop stuff without breaking into playing for fun only)...I think you are guilty of underestimating my observations and time put into it with regards to this. Nothing above was particularly new or mind-blowing to me--I knew about the 6 month commute cycles, I know actual limitation of paths is a good way to limit routes...the only thing I didn't know (but assumed) was that sims are indiscriminately passed as a group to neighbor connections rather than as individuals.

I also know on the Beta testing thread you directed me to, not a single person had a peak commute of greater than 60...I regularly have 90-110 and shoot to maintain about 120.

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: david1314

I also know on the Beta testing thread you directed me to, not a single person had a peak commute of greater than 60...I regularly have 90-110 and shoot to maintain about 120.

quote>

 

This would be because NO Simulator which changes Speed or Maximum Commute Time can be compared to another one.

The Time Graph means absoulately nothing.  If I wanted to I could make that Graph appear as if the Commute Times were actaully 60,000 instead of 60.  Commute Time is built off of the calculation of the what the average commute across the city is and the units are originally in "hop counts" not physical time.  There is a Property that was never modified in the original NAM Files that changes this multiplier property.  Due to this, it means the Graph has absolutely no bearing on the Simulation because it is a graph showing the "real" average commute and not a "theoretical" average commute as you have suggested.  The shape of the graph never changes, what changes are only the number on the left hand side.  If you want to see the real "hop count" average you must set this multiplier to 1.

I have built the Graph to display 90 minutes for the Sim to travel across the full Large City Tile by car in an Avenue.  Meaning, since the testers never had a Commute larger than 60, the average distance the Sims are travelling is 2/3s the length of a Large City Tile.  And this cannot be compared to your MAXIS Commute Times because the basis of the Commute Time Graph is different.

Once again, Commute Time is not a bar average, where the Simulator must average the times of all the paths.  It is simply a basic mathematical average of all the commute times it has calculated, meaning this graph has no bearing on the Simulation itself as you have suggested.... Or as you have stated there is no "Equalization of Commute Times", that would cost a hell of alot more calculations then the one of adding up all commute times and dividing by the number of trips.

The Simulator is not Statistically based.  It is Mathematically based, you must understand this, and my test further concludes this with the distinct line where abandonment begins.  You can have allow the Simulator to have additional tolerances based on certain variables and not make it Statistical. 

[SC4BOY 20]

Further, there have been mistaken assumptions in many analyses.. There certainly may be some here.. I don't know of anyone who has an "inside track",. We used to occasionally talk to the actual programmers and they would sometimes share insights. For some time now we've been making our own assumptions. (at least I've seen no claims to "inside tracks") And no matter how logical they are, they are just assumptions.. so I expect this means this isn't likely to be absolutely resolved independent of how much we may like "absolute" answers. It only takes one example that proves the exception.. and no number of observations of behaviour "inside the rules" will prove the rule.

[RippleJet 36]

Originally posted by: david1314 it's like there is no maximum.quote>

 

Jplumbley had an excellent reply to that with an experiment showing how many tiles sims are prepared to walk (11 tiles if MT was preferred if I recall correctly, and 7 tiles otherwise).

He also explained all the factors in the traffic simulator, like the Hop Count and the Mass Transit Preferred Penalty, explaining why sims would take mass transit even if the car would faster. The fact that the commute clock was resetted at each TE lot was also interesting information, and how the last leg of the trip to work, from the last TE lot onwards was the important one. As well as the fact the a border crossing in this respect is in fact a TE lot.

Edited. Mr. C. 

[festdave 0]

When you say that an avenue now has the same capacity of a road, does that mean they're interchangeable? I don't see how that's realistic or desirable if that's the case. Shouldn't an avenue be like two one-way roads, effectively doubling the (bi-directional) capacity of a single, two-way road?

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: festdave When you say that an avenue now has the same capacity of a road, does that mean they're interchangeable? I don't see how that's realistic or desirable if that's the case. Shouldn't an avenue be like two one-way roads, effectively doubling the (bi-directional) capacity of a single, two-way road?quote>

 

Capacity is based off of a single tile.  Since Avenues are 2 tiles wide each direction would have the same capacity of a full road.  Therefore double the capacity due to it being twice the size, quite realistic.

[festdave 0]

That's the way I thought it would be, but I wasn't 100% certain. Thanks!

[BigSlark 0]

As a tester for the "A" Simulator, I must say that it works much, much better than the Maxis original and those released with the current NAM version.

Edited. Mr. C. 

[jackel.22 3]

Can somebody please clarify a point?

if i were to start a new city i would want the option closest to radical so that would be option A?

then as the city grows i would have to delete 'hard' and replace it with 'medium'? then delete 'medium' and replace with 'easy'?

would i have to do this to all individual cities? ie. say i already have 3 or 4 at around 1million (therefore 'easy') and i wish to start a fresh city, (i would have to keep swapping out the easy for hard every time i changed cities?

[jplumbley 5]

Jackel.22  You do not have to have to keep swapping.  I just suggest that you start a fresh region with "Hard" because it will allow you to create a better base Network System in the begining.

The "Simulator A - Easy" will be your closest to Radical.  The Radical plugin was actually the worst one out of balance and you will probably see a big change when installing the new one.  But that depends on how well you have setup your Transit Networks.  We have had tests where there is more than 2.8 million Sims in a Medium tile and the Easy version still works even with quite a bit of congestion.  So theoretically you can probably get upto 10 million in a Large Tile.

[carson775 10]

so is this any different than the 5x commute 10x capacity blah blah that came in the NAM?

[jplumbley 5]

Originally posted by: carson775 so is this any different than the 5x commute 10x capacity blah blah that came in the NAM?quote>

 

Definately, the old ones which you just asked about will be replaced by these ones in the next release of NAM.  The one that would most closely represent 5x Commute, 10x Capacity would be "Simulator A - Easy".

[Aprillion 0]

can be trafic simulator file used separately from the rest of NAM? is it a standalone or it has dependencies from other NAM files???

^ for SimMars Beta 2 - road and street textures are changed so they do not match NAM roundabouts, intersections, also no puzzle pieces, GLR nor pedtiles are needed now

^ i use one of the old trafic simulator file without other NAM files and it works ok for my small colony (i needed it because of high congestion and low bus usage - no ordinances and no avenues in Beta 2)...

anyway,, good work guys

___________________

david1314 <> jplumbley

i think you said the same using only different namespaces (david's maximum doesn't mean the same as the jplumbley's *maximum*, ...)

[jplumbley 5]

This is Standalone.  No dependancies.

[jackel.22 3]

thanks jplumbley for answering my query, im was going to start a fresh region so il definitely download this. il take your advice and start with hard.

[Rymac91 15]

With the Park and Ride Mod, does it mean that I'd have to place parking lots in a Central Business District in order to have the majority of traffic being cars?

[SpartanBadger 4]

OK guys, I didn't see anything in this thread about bugs, but I think I've come across one. I just installed the NAMTS (A, Easy) and I was playing one of my cities, then I minimized SC4 to get back into iTunes and then when I went back to the game, my mini map was completely changed (it's not even the map of my city), the date was completely blacked out, when I click the speed buttons they don't depress, and dialog boxes are just blank. I'm almost 100% positive the bugs are from the NAMTS because of the map change...anyone able to help me here?

[SC4BOY 20]

Its highly unlikely what you describe there is a NAM bug of any sort.. you'll have to look elsewhere..

[Neddiggis 1]

It sounds like a graphics glitch to me. Can you recreate the problem? As SC4 is a full screen program minimising it isn't really reccommended.

[SpartanBadger 4]

OK well I had the same problem but even worse:

Anyway I removed the NAMTS and the problem no longer exists. I tried to re-install the NAMTS without the congestion map mod but it wouldn't let me

[Andreas Roth 607]

The congestion map mod is located in the file "NAM_Congestion_Data_View.dat", that should have been installed into your NAM folder. Try to delete it and see if the graphics behave normal again.

[raildigga666 2]

Ok I found a bug, or at least I think it is a bug. After installing the mod, my monorails started polluting. They were not polluting prior to this, so I am pretty sure the mod is responsible for it. Are monorails supposed to pollute? Perhaps I never noticed before. Anyway, I installed sim "b" medium if that makes a difference.

[Andreas Roth 607]

IIRC, the monorail pollution was removed in an early release of the NAM (maybe with the current NAM Traffic Plugins). I don't know if the new Traffic Simulators are "supposed" to bring back the pollution, but if not, though.

[raildigga666 2]

Thank you Roth for your reply... So does that mean that an updated version of this program will again remove the pollution caused by monorails...

[jplumbley 5]

These Simulators were based off of the Standard MAXIS Simulator.  I did not realize there had been a change in the Simulator that caused no pollution to be generated on the Monorails.  I physically dont use Monorails, therefore never could know of that issue.

I can make the fix when these files become part of the NAM in the next update.

[raildigga666 2]

Awesome, I would truly appreciate that....great work otherwise....

[BlackStar 0]

I just checked my programs and features list, and Vista is reporting NAM Simulators as taking up 9.27GB of space.

Is this correct? =/